1998-1999

Student Gulps Into Medical Literature

WORCESTER, Mass. -- Former WPI student Michael Mazur had ice cream,
not medical history, on his mind in September 1997 when he gathered
with fellow members of the WPI Chapter of the Society of Physics
Students for the group's annual "welcome back to campus" ice cream
social. But within minutes of arriving at the event Mazur, who was
then a WPI senior, was on his painful way to being recorded in the
medical literature for surviving a bizarre accident.

Mazur, a West Hills, Calif., native who received his
bachelor's degree in physics in May 1998, swallowed liquid nitrogen
and lived-possibly the first person to do so. The response and
cooperation of emergency medical teams from WPI, the city of
Worcester, and the nearby University of Massachusetts Medical Center
(now UMass Memorial Health Care) helped beat the odds and save his
life.

Mazur tells the story: "As tradition dictates, we made our own ice
cream, using liquid nitrogen as a refrigerant and aerator. We spilled
a little of the nitrogen onto a table and watched tiny little drops of
it dance around."

Someone asked, "Why does it do that?" Mazur explained that the
nitrogen evaporated when it came in contact with the table, which
provided a cushion of air for the drop to sit on, and thermally
insulated it to minimize further evaporation-enabling it to do its
little dance without scarring the table, boiling away or being
"smeared" out. "It's this principle," he said, "that makes it possible
for someone to dip his wet hand into molten lead or to put liquid
nitrogen in his mouth without injury."

Mazur had worked with the chemical in a cryogenics lab several
years before and believed in the principle. To prove it to the
doubting ice cream socializers, he poured some into a glass and into
his mouth-fully expecting to impress the crowd by blowing smoke
rings. But then he swallowed the liquid nitrogen. "Within two seconds
I had collapsed on the floor, unable to breathe or feel anything other
than intense pain."

"Michael performed a stunt he and other students and teachers have
been doing for years," says Thomas Keil, professor and head of WPI's
Physics Department. "Only this time, for some reason, he swallowed the
liquid nitrogen. That turned a trick into a life-threatening medical
emergency."

WPI Campus Police Officers George Burnham and Russell Fontaine and
Emergency Medical Service members John Koser '99 and Jason Verdolino
'00 responded within two minutes. They took Mazur's vital signs, kept
him stable and comfortable, and gathered information for Worcester
EMTs, who arrived shortly thereafter and administered oxygen and
transported him to UMass.

"Michael was conscious when he came in to the emergency ward," says
Dr. Paul Bankey, associate professor of surgery. "He had signs of
perforation of the stomach on x-ray (a surgical emergency) and was
also at risk for perforation of his esophagus. Fortunately we have
the resources and commitment to treat all types of trauma and acute
surgical conditions at the UMass hospital. Michael's evaluation
required the coordinated efforts of the emergency and thoracic surgery
departments as well as the general surgery team."

Luckily, during surgery we found that only his stomach was injured,
as this is more easily dealt with than the esophagus. The lining of
both the esophagus and stomach were visualized during the operation so
that all areas of injury were identified."

When you swallow anything, your epiglottis closes; in Mazur's case
it kept the nitrogen, now a gas, from escaping and forced it into his
body. As a result, his entire gastrointestinal tract was scarred,
burned and perforated, one of his lungs collapsed because of pressure
within his chest cavity from the expanding gas, and part of his
stomach had to be removed. Despite the seriousness and scope of the
injuries, Mazur began breathing on his own within a few days, was
walking within one week, and was discharged from the hospital in two
weeks.

"What was really astounding about Michael's case is that the liquid
nitrogen instantly expanded from a volume of about 3 or 4 cc's to
about 3 or 4 liters and then dissected into five separate body
compartments," says Dr. Karl D. Pilson, a trauma/critical care fellow
at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston who was formerly chief
surgical resident at UMMC. "We operated on Michael's abdomen and
conservatively managed the gas in his chest with success. A
comprehensive literature review reveals this to be the first known
case of these injuries resulting from the ingestion of liquid
nitrogen."

Bankey was delighted at how quickly Mazur recovered. "Several weeks
later, when we looked at the area of injury to the stomach via
endoscopy, it was amazing to see how well it had healed," he says.

"By March I was back to my normal self," Mazur says. He returned to
WPI to complete his degree requirements and graduated with his class
in May. In September, he enrolled in a master's program in physics at
the University of Chicago, happy to be alive and putting the
experience far behind him.

"Physicians always say they learn a lot from their patients," says
Bankey. "Michael's horrific chemical accident taught us once again
that in trauma and emergency surgery, it's best to expect the
unexpected."

An independent technological university founded in 1865, WPI is
renowned for its project-based educational program. Under the WPI
Plan, students are provided with unique opportunities to integrate
classroom studies with preprofessional projects conducted on campus
and at off-campus locations around the world.

WPI was ranked among the top national universities in the 1999
edition of U.S. News and World Report's Best Colleges Guide and was
ranked 18th among the top national institutions in the magazine's Best
College Values report.